This invention relates to a technique for partly extracting data from a display screen and more particularly to a method and apparatus for determining a desired character string and for designating regions respectively preceding and succeeding the character string to thereby extract the character string and the regions.
A data base for storing various kinds of data has been utilized extensively. The user of the data base often desires to fetch necessary information from the data base for displaying the information on the screen of a display unit and thereafter to save a part of the data displayed on the screen. However, all of the information obtained is of such a large amount that, even if it is left in hard copy or saved in another file, picking up the desired part from the filed information for later use imposes a troublesome task on the user.
As is known from Japanese Laid-Open Publication No. 57-141747, a technique has hitherto been proposed which is directed to printing out a necessary part of information displayed on a display unit. According to this proposal, a buffer memory built in the display unit and adapted to temporarily store display play contents also stores with information indicative of attributes of the buffer memory, and this attribute information is used to control whether the contents of the buffer memory should be delivered as print information to a printer. For the addition of the attribute information, however, a cursor is required to be moved on the display screen to a desired display region and hence this proposal is disadvantageous in that the number of key-in operations increases to make the intended print-out operation time excessive.